PBS doesn't need the money though, especially Sesame Street which pulled in 140 million in merchandising sales on its own! Removing the government subsidy would not affect anything at all except removing the strings of government from its productions.

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You realize, of course, the exceedingly miniscule amount of money tax payer money (which works out to barely a cent a person) that's related to Sesame Street isn't to produce the show, but rather to have the money for PBS to purchase episodes. Most of it is funded by contributions and sponsors. To say that's the bug in the budget is not only laughable, but completely missing the point. Especially since big oil is the biggest corporate welfare queen out there. And GE, which doesn't even pay taxes, yet gets government money.

It is important for a successful society to fund the arts, sciences and education. This means privately, commercially and yes, some federal funding too. It's another form of America's infrastructure. These areas are just as important to our landscape as roads and bridges. They give us the next generation of innovators. The federal investment is incredibly small, yet needed. Complete privatization of everything is not the answer. America is a blending of ideas and methods and should remain so. We shouldn't surrender everything to private industry.

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Well put! This whole idea that private industry is the infallible super hero that's going to save us all is lead-paint covered half truths.

To step the political discussion aside a little, and with all means of respect to Mr Spinney, I want to make an observation.

Caroll is fantastic and I cannot imagine Big Bird being played by anyone else, (altough it already did with Matt Vogel), but Caroll's performance looks a bit slow lately when he makes live appearances. Obviously he has aged already but I notice that he's having problems keeping the bird's head up straight. The "sleepy" gag was useful in terms that he can use his hand to balance the puppet's beak and give it a rest from time to time.

Caroll is a sample to follow and I wish him many more years performing the great Big Bird.
Just a puppetry related comment to ease the political issue a little.

I missed this last night, but yay for Big Bird! Just like the Muppets themselves, BB was never really out of the spotlight and we can see by the millions (and it was like millions) of people who set Twitter ablaze on Thursday that PBS is a station that has literally helped to teach millions of kids to count, to read, to discover places they may never go to, science, etc.

While I'm not gonna go political about this, I think Neil DeGrasse Tyson had the best quote to explain the utter stupidity that cutting funding to such an educational station is like -

It's basically the notion that cutting funds from PBS does nothing to cut down any type of budget that our (US) government spends. It's the equivelent of taking text files (which are incredibly small) off a 500GB HD in order to save space instead of, oh I don't know, removing the 420GB of files and applications that aren't being used.

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Trying to keep this non-political...

I work in software and I've been involved in a long project to reduce the size of a product. While the idea of removing text files to save space sometimes sounds dumb, it's sometimes necessary. Sometimes removing the really big files causes too many problems and it becomes necessary to remove 5,000 small files instead of one big one. Any one of the files can be accurately described as not making a difference, but together they do make a difference, however small.

I am being 100% factual about an actual hard-drive-related subject, not making a subtle analogy for political thoughts. I just find the quote to be highly ironic because it's exactly what I've been doing for months.

I work in software and I've been involved in a long project to reduce the size of a product. While the idea of removing text files to save space sometimes sounds dumb, it's sometimes necessary. Sometimes removing the really big files causes too many problems and it becomes necessary to remove 5,000 small files instead of one big one. Any one of the files can be accurately described as not making a difference, but together they do make a difference, however small.

I am being 100% factual about an actual hard-drive-related subject, not making a subtle analogy for political thoughts. I just find the quote to be highly ironic because it's exactly what I've been doing for months.

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It depends on what is actually on the hard drive, if you're being literal about it.

For instance, my hard drive could contain 1,000 text files, but removing those would do nothing but free up may be a MB of space versus say removing World of Warcraft which is say...50 GB will all expansion packs installed. You would have to have a ton of text files to make up the difference for removing something as large as WoW.

DeGrasse Tyson was making a generalization, if you will, in regards to Romney's statement - funding for PBS is, in this case, not the equivalent of uninstalling WoW (or any large application or game) from a system. It's basically makes too small of a footprint to make a difference, which is why Romney's statement for cutting PBS funding is flawed and makes no sense.

It depends on what is actually on the hard drive, if you're being literal about it.

For instance, my hard drive could contain 1,000 text files, but removing those would do nothing but free up may be a MB of space versus say removing World of Warcraft which is say...50 GB will all expansion packs installed. You would have to have a ton of text files to make up the difference for removing something as large as WoW.

DeGrasse Tyson was making a generalization, if you will, in regards to Romney's statement - funding for PBS is, in this case, not the equivalent of uninstalling WoW (or any large application or game) from a system. It's basically makes too small of a footprint to make a difference, which is why Romney's statement for cutting PBS funding is flawed and makes no sense.

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I fully understand his quote. I'm refusing to go political w/r/t Big Bird, so I'm not commenting on the meaning behind his analogy. I just find the actual example ironic for the aforementioned reason. I'm required to reduce disk space but I'm not allowed to touch the giant files causing the problem, so I'm stuck removing text files.

You know, as far as the comparisons go, we ALL know that axing PBS wouldn't even help the economy anyway, BUT, there are SOME Romney supporters out there who claim they understand his motive: by eliminating not only PBS, but other similar organizations, those small things will continue to adds up, and by such, will eventually help get the economy back on track... one person commenting on one of these Big Bird/Romney spoof videos on YouTube was like, "Dudes, think of it like this: you're always buying things you really don't need, like the candies, the sodas, the junk foods, etc... by cutting out spending for those little things, you'll be surprised how much money you'll have left over to buy more important things you really need".

DeGrasse Tyson was making a generalization, if you will, in regards to Romney's statement - funding for PBS is, in this case, not the equivalent of uninstalling WoW (or any large application or game) from a system. It's basically makes too small of a footprint to make a difference, which is why Romney's statement for cutting PBS funding is flawed and makes no sense.

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In regards to politics, both sides have pet projects, it's just tax and spend raises money for said pet projects. I needn't tell you what the last administration's pet project was, but it was funded by reckless borrowing and drastic cuts to local aid among others, all to keep their other pet project, corporate welfare. We're deep in debt because of the last administration's spending without revenue, and once again, we're looking at said same party as last administration looking towards the small funded pet causes of the other party, and hoping their supporters have the attention span of a goldfish to forget how they basically had an endless credit card they could blame on the next guy.

I just find the actual example ironic for the aforementioned reason. I'm required to reduce disk space but I'm not allowed to touch the giant files causing the problem, so I'm stuck removing text files.

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The analogy is shockingly apt here... we have to make "disk space" by clearing out the small text files, some needed, but they can't touch the bigger files. And in this case, the bigger files are HD porn, HQ illegally downloaded music, video games they got very bored of half way through, and (for the sake of analogy), they back up files of everyone they know. Basically, they have things only them and their friends can enjoy and take advantage of, but deny any slight edge that could help anyone else, no matter how low the cost is. Even if the initial cost is cheaper for everyone in the short run.

You know, as far as the comparisons go, we ALL know that axing PBS wouldn't even help the economy anyway, BUT, there are SOME Romney supporters out there who claim they understand his motive: by eliminating not only PBS, but other similar organizations, those small things will continue to adds up, and by such, will eventually help get the economy back on track... one person commenting on one of these Big Bird/Romney spoof videos on YouTube was like, "Dudes, think of it like this: you're always buying things you really don't need, like the candies, the sodas, the junk foods, etc... by cutting out spending for those little things, you'll be surprised how much money you'll have left over to buy more important things you really need".

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Of course, the Reps have done it in reverse. They've spent fortunes on candies, sodas, and junk foods, and they're cutting out the stuff we need so they can keep the things they want.

I work in software and I've been involved in a long project to reduce the size of a product. While the idea of removing text files to save space sometimes sounds dumb, it's sometimes necessary. Sometimes removing the really big files causes too many problems and it becomes necessary to remove 5,000 small files instead of one big one. Any one of the files can be accurately described as not making a difference, but together they do make a difference, however small.

I am being 100% factual about an actual hard-drive-related subject, not making a subtle analogy for political thoughts. I just find the quote to be highly ironic because it's exactly what I've been doing for months.

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It sounds like you either have a virus or you need to defrag. Nobody defrags anymore, but it is necessary.

All I'm gonna say is is I saw the video and I loved seeing the people at the end hug Big Bird but I also felt envious because I wanna hug the big yellow bird too! He has a special place in my heart. Big Bird taught me how to put on my coat when I was 3! Although I have to agree with what most people have said I HATE he's in the spotlight for politics. That is all have a great day.

Inside Edition did a story today about Big Bird's appearance on SNL, and said that PBS was uncomfortable about Big Bird appearing on the show, during the wake of all this PBS drama and everything, but once they got a copy of the script, and saw that it was politically neutral, they allowed Big Bird to appear.

And IE even made it a point to mention that the man inside Big Bird is Caroll Spinney, who is now 79 and has been playing Big Bird since, get this, 1969.

I was sitting there watching SNL as I always do every weekend, and I was hoping and praying Big Bird would make an appearance especially during the opening sketch. When that didn't happen I was thinking maybe he would show up in the monologue. That didn't happen either.... lol So there I was cracking up at Weekend Update and finally... the moment happened! I couldn't believe it! My favorite bird was at the news desk!